Turning Cove Point into an energy exporter is a big deal for Calvert County, and for America

Dominion Cove Point LNG moved a big step closer to an historic transformation last week. The big energy mover on little Calvert County’s southern Bay shore won the U.S. Department of Energy’s approval to export American natural gas, in liquefied form, to any nation that wants to buy.
The date was September 11, a portentous anniversary both for the nation and for the LNG terminal’s history.
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Annapolis is a wild place to live.
That’s the conclusion of the National Wildlife Federation, which has certified our capital city as a Community Wildlife Habitat. In such a place, the human population of roughly 38,000 is dwarfed by legions of creatures that crawl, hop, slither, fly, dart and lope as they did when the world was young, before humans took over.
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You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but Spiggy is this year’s Calvert You Are Beautiful Volunteer. Yes, Richard ‘Dave’ Spigler, the guy who added frump to female impersonation by donning a hog nose, big-hair wig and old grandma dress. The very Spiggy whom with a cadre of friends, formed the Washingon Redskins’s Hogettes cheering section for 19 years.
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It was well after low slack when the incoming tidal current finally began to push me upriver. A light, soft wind from the south drifted my skiff diagonally cross channel and made everything just perfect for what I intended.
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Recommendations for planting bulbs using bulb augers or planters bother me. Most instructions advise planting large bulbs six inches deep and small bulbs and corms three inches deep.
If you want your bulbs, especially tulip bulbs, to flourish year after year, ignore those recommendations and take the shovel to the garden — as well as a bag or two of compost and some agricultural-grade limestone.
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For the difference he makes in “the fabric of life for South County residents,” Bay Gardener Frank Gouin was honored this week with the Southern Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce’s annual Gene Hall Community Service Award.
“He’s done so much for the community in so many levels,” says Chamber board member John Hiser, last year’s Hall award winner.
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Almost overnight, the way it happens in Sci-Fi movies, spiders have invaded. Webs are spun under the porch light, draped from the mailbox and suspended like chandeliers from every shrub and tree. Walk out and you walk into one.
The arachnid explosion that ripples across Chesapeake Country in late summer and early fall is what happens when the spiderlings we saw on their mommas’ backs last spring grow up.
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West River Wickets take their croquet mallets to Maryland ­Senior Olympics

Bill Brewer plays croquet with the dedication of a founding father.
From his back yard, croquet rose from an excuse for a party “with lots of rum” to a championship game played by ambitious senior Olympians.
Next week, Maryland Senior Olympics competition adds its first croquet tournament. Brewer’s team, the nationally recognized West River Wickets Croquet Club, will be there to strike for gold.
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Was your eye on the sky at 11:27 Friday night, September 6?
Did LADEE’s takeoff burn an arc into your vision and memory?
LADEE — short for NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer — is intended to be a close observer of the moon.
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